“I do, and I’ll tell you why,” Helen
answered. “I don’t think Mr. Lessingham
is at all the type of man to which you are accustomed.
I think that he is in deadly earnest about you.
I think that he was in deadly earnest from the first.
You don’t really care for him, do you, dear?”

“Very much, and yet not, perhaps, quite in the
way you are thinking of,” was the quiet reply.

“Then please send him away,” Helen begged.

“My dear, how can I?” Philippa objected.
“He has done us an immense service, and he
can’t disobey his orders.”

“You don’t want him to go away, then?”

Philippa was silent for several moments. “No,”
she admitted, “I don’t think that I do.”

“You don’t care for Henry any more?”

“Just as much as ever,” was the somewhat
bitter reply. “That’s what I resent
so much. I should like Henry to believe that
he had killed every spark of love in me.”

Helen moved across and sat on the arm of her friend’s
chair. She felt that she was going to be very
daring.

“Have you any idea at the hack of your mind,
dear,” she asked “of making use of Mr.
Lessingham to punish Henry?”

Philippa moved a little uneasily.

“How hatefully downright you are!” she
murmured. “I don’t know.”

“Because,” Helen continued, “if
you have any such idea in your mind, I think it is
most unfair to Mr. Lessingham. You know perfectly
well that anything else between you and him would be
impossible.”